


hope returns, fear subsides

by Woodswolf



Series: Angel of Death [2]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Personification of Death, Self-Insert, minor profanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 01:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10205573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woodswolf/pseuds/Woodswolf
Summary: He’s leaning on the windowsill, staring out at sea. It’s the same place where they’d had the conversation yesterday. The Window – always the same window – where the difference between truth and lie turns into little more than a blur.A spin-off ofthis oneshotfrom my Ninjago 30 Day Writing Challenge.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a spin-off of [this oneshot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5444168/chapters/12582074) from my Ninjago 30 Day Writing Challenge (which I never completed, lmao). Read that one first, then come back here.

There’s fear in his eyes now, but the only thing that surprises her is the amount.

He’s so paralyzed by his fear that he nearly collapses against the wall as he closes the secret entrance to the basement. She sits across the room, perched high above on the stairs where she can observe everything.

There’s no point in trying to help him; the rules of her “contract” won’t allow it. Even if she wanted to help him up, it wouldn’t really matter – she’s not entirely corporeal most of the time, anyway.

He recovers himself and scrambles across the room. He takes another long, hard look at the camera feed from outside. Moves the camera with the joystick. Zooms in. Stares more. The lighthouse is cold and damp to begin with, but she can still feel the blood freezing in his veins.

She reflects on the cruel beauty of it all. The very fact that, because she exists outside of this time, she can pause this moment and leave it forever, never let time press forward. Him, frozen, staring at the monitor. Them, frozen, standing outside.

Everyone waiting for whatever happens next.

She leaps gracefully down from the edge of the stairway and walks up to him. She’s slowed things to such a rate that she can clearly examine every detail: the jagged, fraying edges of his clothes being just barely caressed by a draft. The tiniest shaking movements of his jaw. The microscopic focusing and refocusing of his eyes on different parts of the scene before him.

The hope in his eyes died long ago, long before she could reveal her presence. Were she able to comfort him, she would’ve tried, but she knows it wouldn’t have made a difference. He gave up on this hope for the same reason he gave up every other ideal and dream he ever had: the world wouldn’t let him have it.

She remembers the short conversation the two of them had had the previous night, up in the top of the tower. The idea that things happen merely because they need to. Hard choices versus no choices. Perfect solutions, and the fact that they don’t exist.

While she’s examining, almost _memorizing_ his minute movements – the results of time being stretched by a factor of a thousand or more – she thinks back to that conversation. _“Know this. You’ll have a hard choice soon. Just… know that a hard choice is better than no choice at all.”_

It’s a joke. All of it is a joke.

She looks deep into his future and sees _nothing_ but hard choices. She looks deep into his past and sees every single hard choice he had to make to get here, to this exact moment, to this event that is happening right now.

This, right now, him staring at this monitor – is another choice. His panic washes over her in waves as he tries to determine what is the best thing to do.

If she were in his shoes, she knows that she would be panicking, too.

* * *

Later that evening, just as the sun is beginning to set, she ascends to the top of the tower. He’s waiting there for her, everyone else having gone… elsewhere.

He’s leaning on the windowsill, staring out at sea. It’s the same place where they’d had the conversation yesterday. The Window – always the same window – where the difference between truth and lie turns into little more than a blur.

“I’m a coward,” he says. “I’m a fucking coward.”

She says nothing.

“What, you aren’t even going to comment?”

She just stares.

“I just…” he starts, trying to find the right words. “I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“…You know what,” he finally says after a short silence. “Everything that’s happened here.”

( _One specific thing in particular,_ she thinks.)

“Then the answer is simple,” she replies. “Don’t.”

He glances at her. She shrugs her shoulders and sticks her hands in the front pocket of the oversized sweatshirt she’s wearing. “I thought you were supposed to be my conscience,” he says after a moment. “I thought you were supposed to push me down the best path.”

She laughs, a single short bark-like sound. “Believe it or not, that’s almost the exact _opposite_ of what I’m here for.”

He grows angry, then, and turns away from the Window to face her instead. “Then why the hell are you even here? Just to torture me?” His face curls into a snarl. “Because I’ve already had more than enough of that shit.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” she answers calmly. “I’m just here to make sure things happen how they should.”

He turns back to the Window to glare at the sunset instead. The sky is an angry red-orange, and the nearly black water accentuates its rage even more. She comes to stand next to him and chooses to lean against the wall.

“…Do you remember our first conversation?” she begins after a long period of silence. “When I explained what I was, why I was there?”

“How could I forget?” he replies. A tinge of malice remains in his voice. “It’s not like you watched me for almost a year before finally telling me what was going on.”

“What if I told you I was being… overly specific, in my definition?”

It’s his turn to be silent.

“While it’s true that I _can_ function as an ‘angel of death’, there’s a bit more to it than that,” she explains. “I’m supposed to provide warning and time to prepare for traumatic events that will shape who a person is. The most common application of this is when a person dies, but there are… rarer scenarios.”

She scans his face carefully. He’s on edge. The sadness that’s normally in his eyes is still there, but this time it’s joined by anxiety and flickers of fear. If his gaze were a sentence, it would be a scared whisper that asks what comes next. It doesn’t _want_ to know; it _needs_ to know.

She swallows nervously and readjusts her lean against the wall. “I can’t tell you everything, but I’ll explain what I can,” she whispers. “I _do_ want to help you, and you’re going to need what you can get.”

Fear and anxiety achieve control of his eyes once more. He doesn’t say anything, only nods quietly. She looks down at the floor, exhales slowly, and then begins.

“In about six months’ time, exactly a year after I came to you this second time,” she says, “You’re going to discover that you have a horrific, incurable condition.”

She looks back up at his face. He’s hanging on her every word, utterly absorbed by what she’s telling him. He’s seen what she can do. He has no room for doubt anymore.

But the next part is so hard to say…

“After that…” She breaks her sentence to regain her composure. “After that, you’ll be forced to leave everything behind.”

His expression is blank. “Again.”

She nods. “Yes.”

He returns to silence, once again appearing lost in thought. He reemerges a minute later with a new, burning question on his tongue.

“…Why are you helping me?” he asks, slowly.

It’s a question made less of sound and more of lip movements and pure desperation. He’s tired. He’s exhausted. He’s had his turn, and he’s done playing. But the world won’t let him move on.

“Trust me when I say this,” she says, staring at her feet. She looks back up again, into his eyes. Cold, dark gray-blue, like the sea outside. “It’s just as much for my sake as it is for yours.”

* * *

Soon, one of the others arrives at the top of the tower. She doesn’t look at him as he passes her; she barely acknowledges he exists, and he does the same for her. His time will come soon enough.

She slinks down the stairs at the first available opportunity, blinking furiously to counteract tears. She won’t pretend this job – to prepare others for their fates – isn’t hard enough already. But she also won’t pretend that she doesn’t have a personal connection with this particular case. That, combined with the fact that she’s directing history to repeat itself in an infinite loop – that scares her. If their roles were reversed, she doesn’t know where she’d be.

But none of that matters now. All that matters is navigating down the stairs to the ground floor. All that matters is willing herself to become completely incorporeal, such that she can pass into the secret chambers without making a sound.

She returns to her normal state – neither here nor there, only existing in a strange, hybrid way – as soon as she passes completely through the secret door. She takes a moment to sit with her back to the fake wall and just breathe for a moment or two.

Following him around, speaking in riddles for the future, offering comfort and advice – that’s her job. That’s what she’s been assigned to do. That is all she is required to do.

But this, here – this is for herself. This is a selfish task.

She slowly gets to her feet and begins the long descent down the narrow, winding corridor. She’s grateful that her tennis shoes have enough traction to keep her from slipping on the damp rocks. The further down she goes, the wetter it gets. The tunnel is lined with stone, and sound echoes through it – she can hear the slow drip of water through a leak some ways ahead. It echoes in the darkness, gives her a target to aim towards in the pitch blackness.

All at once, she is invading a memory. She can hear the weeping now, echoing up the tunnel. She almost forgets what the weeping was for – crushed hopes? Lost dreams? Final surrender? – but it doesn’t matter, she decides.

(Somewhere, there are two pairs of footsteps running down a stairwell as fast as they can. Somewhere, the footsteps flee out the door and down the rock.)

The weeping stops as soon as she can see the light of the room below. It no longer pretends to be real when it’s brought into the light.

She enters the room somberly and finds her intended target. This is against the rules, this is against more rules than she can count, but she doesn’t care. _She doesn’t care._

She makes herself solid – and visible to the other person there.

(Somewhere, a ship is being boarded to escape to a new world. Somewhere, a ship is being attacked by a monster obsessed with _vengeance._ )

He’s very surprised to see her appear out of thin air in front of him. He doesn’t recognize her; he’s only known one human being his entire life.

She runs up to him and hugs him anyway.

(Somewhere, a son jumps over a side. Somewhere, survivors pray for mercy.)

“He’s sorry, he’s so, so _sorry,_ ” she sobs.

Her tears are flowing freely now; they drip down her face and mix with the small pools of saltwater on the floor. Now she is the one weeping.

(Somewhere, a chain breaks. Somewhere, a creature is freed.)

The one she is embracing is wiser than anyone else in the world. She doesn’t know how, or why, but she knows it’s true. He holds her and says nothing in return, which means more to her than he could ever imagine.

“He’s _so sorry,_ ” she whispers. “But everything is going to be okay.”

(Somewhere, a ship flies to the horizon. Somewhere, a timer counts down to zero.)

They stand together, clinging to each other, until she disappears as suddenly as she arrived, fading out of existence like a ghost. There one minute, gone the next.

He leaves the basement and walks through the cold, dark corridor to the ground floor. The lighthouse now stands empty and silent. He is the only life that remains.

He is confused, and doesn’t entirely know what’s happened – he’d been left in the basement, waiting to be retrieved. Something must have happened for the tower to now be empty.

But he remembers the woman’s words: _“Everything is going to be okay.”_

Echo doesn’t need anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Love when inspiration randomly hits and then sticks around long enough to finish something.


End file.
